ECUADOR · SECURITY
Key Facts
- Where Pedernales, a coastal town in Manabí province, north-western Ecuador.
- What happened Soldiers shot and killed a person during an operation on 12 September.
- Who A minor. The armed forces released only an alias, Neiser. No name and no age have been given.
- What the military says That he disobeyed orders and put soldiers’ lives in danger.
- What was recovered A single home-made revolver with no serial number.
- The gang claim Military personnel say he is believed to have belonged to Los Choneros. No court has found anything.
The Ecuadorian armed forces announced an operation against a gang member in a coastal town. The person they killed was a child.
Ecuadorian soldiers shot and killed a minor in Pedernales on Saturday. The armed forces say he was believed to belong to the country’s oldest criminal gang.
What the Armed Forces Described
The operation took place in the Ciudad Jardín district of Pedernales, in Manabí province. It was carried out by the Manabí joint task force.
No operation name has been published. Defence Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo gave the account.
The person disobeyed orders and endangered the soldiers, he said, and they responded forcefully. One weapon was recovered, a home-made .38 revolver with no serial number.
El Universo dates the incident to Saturday 12 September. A local outlet dates its own report a day later.
The Detail the Announcement Buried
The person killed was a minor. Ecuadorian reporting states it, and the armed forces have not disputed it.
No name has been released and no age has been given beyond that. The alias in the statement is all the public has.
The gang attribution came in the conditional form Spanish-language official statements use for unproven claims. According to military personnel, the suspect would have belonged to Los Choneros.
Intelligence sources connect him to an attack at Cojimíes on 5 September, in which four people died and two were wounded. No charge was ever brought, and none can be now.
Who Los Choneros Are
Los Choneros is the oldest of Ecuador’s major criminal organisations, and Manabí is where it started. It grew from local crime into cocaine trafficking.
Ecuador was one of the safest countries in the region until groups like this took hold. The group has splintered repeatedly.
Several of the most violent factions operating today began as breakaways from it. Recruitment of children is documented across Ecuadorian criminal groups.
It explains how a boy ends up in a military report, and it does not settle what happened in Pedernales.
The Rules That Apply
Ecuador has governed under successive states of emergency, and soldiers hold internal security powers they would not normally have. Those powers do not suspend the requirement that lethal force be necessary and proportionate.
Ecuadorian law and international standards both continue to apply. In comparable cases, scrutiny has come from prosecutors rather than from the armed forces themselves.
No prosecutor has commented on this one, and no independent investigation into the use of force has been reported.
Pedernales
The town sits on the Pacific coast at the northern edge of Manabí, about five hours from Quito by road. Most outsiders know the name from the 2016 earthquake.
It destroyed much of the town centre and killed hundreds of people. It rebuilt slowly, on tourism and fishing.
It has also become a transit point for cocaine moving north along the coast. That is the trade the soldiers were there for.
It is why a joint task force operates in a town this size at all.
What Nobody Outside the Unit Can Say
The only account of the shooting is the one given by the force that did it. No witness has spoken publicly.
No family has been named. Nothing has been published about how the confrontation began or how close the soldiers were.
Ecuador has had four years of this, and the pattern in most cases is that the first account is the last one. For now a boy is dead in Pedernales and a revolver is in an evidence bag.
The paperwork says he disobeyed an order.
More: Ecuador news and analysis, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened in Pedernales?
Ecuadorian soldiers shot and killed a person during an operation on 12 September 2026.
Who was killed?
A minor. The armed forces released only an alias, and gave no name or age.
Was he a gang member?
The military says he is believed to have belonged to Los Choneros. No court has made any finding.
What did the defence minister say?
That the person disobeyed orders and endangered soldiers, and that they responded forcefully.
Which unit was involved?
The Manabí joint task force. No operation name has been published.
Is anyone investigating?
No prosecutor has commented and no independent inquiry has been reported.
Sources: Fuerzas Armadas del Ecuador, El Universo, El Diario, Manabí Noticias.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated AI newsroom. Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. The Rio Times also runs Ask Rio Times, which answers from 100,000+ of our own articles, the daily Latin America Power Map, and prediction-market odds on elections and markets.. How we use AI · Report an error